About

Redneck Randal is an advice animal image macro series centered around a picture of a mustached young man wearing a sleeveless American pride t-shirt and posing with two thumbs up. The captions typically involve poking fun at the lifestyle of so-called American “rednecks[2],” a derogatory slang term for people from the southern United States associated with unabashed American pride, beer drinking, and rural life.[3]

Origin

The earliest known instance of the image macro was shared on Reddit[4] on March 4th, 2011. The caption alludes to an incestual relationship between the character and his daughter, a common trope employed in redneck humor.[5] Originally uploaded via Quickmeme[1], there are 7891 instances of the series on the site as of May 2012.

Following the blog coverage of Redneck Randal, a Memebase[6] user commented on May 11th, 2011 that the identity of the man in the photo is a Texas arcade owner named Cory Clinkscales.[7] Meanwhile, several other commenters claimed that the photo is of a Mississippi resident named Hunter Smith. The image’s original site of origin still remains unclear.

Spread

A compilation of Redneck Randal images were featured on internet humor blog The Bigster[10] on May 22nd, 2011. Two additional sets from the series can be found on image macro gallery site #1 Meme Universal Trend in 2011.[13][14] In 2012, another compilation was hosted on humor blog Runt of the Web.[16] On Reddit, a Redneck Randal image post[8] earned 1172 points on April 12th, 2012. The next month, an instance with the caption “Then I told the teacher lady I ain’t no homosapien, I’m a heterosapien” was featured as the “Meme of the Week” in the Atlanta magazine GA Voice.[15] As of June 2012, there are more than 480 instances[9] of the series on Reddit and more than 10,000 instances on Quickmeme.[1] Redneck Randal has continued to spread on Memebase[11] and Tumblr.[12]

Notable Examples

Almost Politically Correct Redneck

In May 2012, Redditor IanL27 submitted an image macro to the /r/adviceanimals subreddit in a post titled “I present to you: Somewhat Politically Correct Redneck”, which featured a photo of a young shirtless man with a mullet hairstyle standing next to a pickup truck and the caption “Not against gay marriage / unless the couple is colored.” The post was well received on /r/adviceanimals subreddit, spawning a significant volume of image macros that became known as Almost Politically Correct Redneck, portraying the man as a slightly more tolerant peer of Redneck Randal.